


this, i guess, is to tell you you're chosen out from the rest

by foxinschlox



Series: MikoTotsu Week 2014 [10]
Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Afterlife, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 20:09:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3147032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxinschlox/pseuds/foxinschlox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for MikoTotsu Week. 12/19 : Reunion| FINAL. [ post-mikoto's death. "the great homra in the sky" is absolutely real... ]</p>
            </blockquote>





	this, i guess, is to tell you you're chosen out from the rest

People say goodbye sometimes and sometimes they don't. But Totsuka makes sure to wave and say hello from a second story window. Between white curtains, just peeking at first, and then all of him at once. Too much of him at once. A helpful current of wind catches him when he leans out too far, overcome. It carries away the dewy tears welled up and spilling over.

 

Hello down there !

 

_Thanks to the wind that took you away to me._

 

Now there's smile like the sun and stars coming out all at once. Spreads ethereal light all over this place before the former red king's eyes. So maybe it isn't exactly like he remembered; as just a building where they gathered, where he slept. Figures. It's even more breathtaking in every detail from foundation to the missing shrouded edges of the rooftop. A genuine palace.

 

The tail of the wind leaves Mikoto at the steps staring up.

 

“Hurry! You're still so slow!”

 

“Take it easy, brat.”

 

The front door handle's loose and makes that sound. Like from when he used to break it all the time. What's with this place? Inside it smells the same, it feels the same. Maybe it was always so stunning, and maybe he never noticed.

 

With a running start Totsuka comes close to knocking Mikoto off his feet, and he's grabbed tight on the catch. In the crook of Mikoto's arm, held like the first time. Lifted up so his toes just barely touch the ground. Their embrace reflects over the glossed cherry wood floor and it's there they find themselves, clinging.

Holding each other for what may be a real eternity. Soft confessions whisper between, so mutually obvious they were never spoken before. And they breathe each other in so deep as if another chance will never come.

  
“Been here all alone?”

 

“It's not so bad. I was just waiting,”

Totsuka asks with his body to be lifted up more, noses Mikoto's cheek like always; arms drape around the broad shoulders he loves best.

“You can't really feel the waiting – it doesn't hurt.”

 

“ 's good.”

_Nothing will hurt you anymore._

A searching touch finds Totsuka's chest without a heartbeat beneath, though woundless. Unscarred. Mikoto's memory is too hazy to realize what he's looking for. He's relieved not to find it.

 

“Now you're here with me... we can cook something special together for the occasion,” Totsuka just squeezes his hand tight. Says it like they're not anywhere different from usual. “But I'm afraid you'll have to get used to not using your powers.”

 

The familiar grunt of a reply is a pleased one.

It's the nicest thing Mikoto can even imagine.

 

“O _hh-oh_! But first I have to show you. There's so many things to show you but this-”

Totsuka doesn't relinquish his grip before taking off, dragging Mikoto up familiar stairs. So familiar his steps move backward. So they don't have to take eyes off of each other. Past the second story. Climbing to push at the last door at the end of the last of the stairs.

 

The top floor opens to a vast expanse of sky, a sea of cloud spread out from the rooftop's edge and all around. Cloud the colors of sunset, warm and bright with pinks and golds both pale and vibrant. All like some unextraordinary dream.

Totsuka is too excited to show him, but Mikoto simply follows in a trance of watchful calm. Nothing would please him more than to follow behind forever. To never lead again.

 

Mikoto's smile won't quit him. His following draws him close to the only thing that's captured his attention.

“This's too much.”

 

“Think so?”

Backward steps lead Totsuka nearly off the edge of the rooftop. Instinctively Mikoto reaches after him, for Totsuka's frail wrist.

 

“Come with me... it's _fine_.”

Totsuka grasps his hand in turn to tug him out over the edge.

Over the edge down into a free fall that ends short, in a bed of pillowy cloud. Totsuka laughs gentle against his chest and he's never felt so weightless. After a life bound up in chains he's never felt anything close to this.

Until a singular thought visits him. He lets the memory in.

 

“That's what you always said.”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Fine – that's how you said everything'd turn out.”

 

“And did it?”

 

Mikoto scowls, though it softens and saddens once Totsuka takes his face in his hands.

 

“Sometimes we don't get to see how the story turns out until we're here. It's not over yet. You have to be patient.”

 

_Grunt._

Patience is foreign to the former Red King.

 

“Look,”

Totsuka dips a hand into their soft nest of cloud, swishes it around to make a sort of window. It's a little unnerving to peer down through.

 

“Even without us it's still turning, doing its best for them. I'm happy for that.”

Below lies the world they abandoned – troubled, diseased and imbalanced of power. Pieces of them remain there.

As long as they linger in memory they may watch over the ones who keep them.

Mikoto isn't sure he wants to look so closely at the aftermath. But he owes that much. With Totsuka to hold it's easier; they share the burden of guilt, the choice to remember it even here.

 

“ 'm sorry... I could've... I needed you.”

 

“ _Mikoto._ ”

The sound of his name lets him know he is home. The pressure against his lightened body is so real.

“The wind blew out your flame and took you away to me. This is how it's supposed to go.”

 

Another breath of air sweeps across the wide expanse of cloud – as if answering to its name –

pressing the two together at the edge of their new world.

 

“ _Tots'ka._ ”

The former red king won't ever give up his smile again once it returns, having the fringe of his hair toyed with by the nuisance in his arms.

“Doesn't make any damn sense.”

 

In this place reserved for those neither evil or good, but who played their role well to their final act. Once tying lives together so that others may survive the cycle's vicious turn.

 

_And, in the end, the fact is this : there is no world, life or after, in which part of the whole can be missing._


End file.
